JustCode. Retrospective of the last 2+ months.

Here's a short list of what we've managed to achieve during the last 2+ months since we released JustCode in November:

We’ve fixed a lot of C# / VB.NET and JavaScript "Good Code Red" issues. "Good Code Red" issues occur when errors are reported by JustCode for code that actually compiles fine. We treat these types of issues with a very high priority as it's very annoying when errors and warnings are reported throughout the solution for code that works perfectly fine. If you still experience such problems, please report them to us and we'll fix them for the RC. You can easily report these problems through the use of the "Report Good Code Red" quick fix. Simply position the cursor over the code that has been reported as an error, press Alt + Enter, and then choose "Report Good Code Red."

Another way you can accomplish this, is to open the JustCode Error List Window, right click the error that you want to report, and again, choose "Report Good Code Red"

which will open the "Report Good Code Red" dialog.

We’ve improved the performance and memory footprint of JustCode quite a bit. Soon we will prepare some performance metrics which I will be posting. The memory JustCode consumes in the Visual Studio process is now being kept to a minimum. The memory footprint of the code analysis process has also been optimized. Although we continuously test JustCode again solutions containing millions of lines of code with satisfactory results, supporting several languages (C#, VB.NET, JavaScript, etc.), various configurations, and literally an unlimited number of scenarios can be difficult. It is possible we could have missed something. Should you experience problems with any sized solution, please report it to us so we can react and fix it for the official release.

We’ve added one additional quick fix, "Add Reference And Fix Using." This quick fix scans all of the projects in the solution and their references, for matching type names and suggests adding a reference to a particular project or assembly. It also adds the respective using / import statement.

We’ve added one additional highly requested feature - "Color identifiers." By default, Visual Studio provides colorizations for keywords, identifiers, strings, comments, etc., but it doesn't provide more granular options. For example, you can't set different colors for methods, properties, events, variables, method parameters, etc. JustCode allows you to set different colors on these types of things thus making the code much more readable.

Enabling the "Color identifiers" option in the JustCode Options menu will allow you to enjoy this feature.

Additionally, you can customize the default colors in the menu, under Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors.

We’ve made the Extract Method refactoring work for JavaScript too.

We’ve enhanced the C# formatter. Now you can use it to reorder your code using some rules that you can easily customize through the JustCode Options menu.

This brings us one step closer to our future goal of having good integration with StyleCop.

Now when you do certain refactorings like Introduce Variable, Introduce Field, etc., you will get a dropdown suggesting several names based on the code you have selected.

We’ve fixed several reported problems. If you are still experiencing problems, please report them to us so that we can react in a timely manner and fix everything possible for the official release in March.

What's next:

The next JustCode build (to be released in the second week of February) will support Visual Studio 2010.

We'll further improve the VB.NET formatter and the JavaScript formatter.

We plan to add two additional quick fixes - "Create Class" and "Move Class To Another File To Match Type Name". The first quick fix will allow you to quickly create a class and its constructor from a usage. This could save you some time if you're practicing TDD. The second quick fix will allow you to quickly move a given type to a new file having the same name as the type.

Once we’ve released a build including these features and improvements, we'll freeze the feature set, and begin work on fixing reported problems and polishing minor things.

I'd like to thank all the people who have sent us their feedback and suggestions about the product. We really appreciate it. I hope all of you will continue helping us to improve the product. We are also looking forward to your help in choosing the right direction for further improvements.